It has become a bit of a standing joke amongst Swansea City fans that we may never get a penalty again and today marks exactly one year since our last penalty – a penalty converted by Jamal Lowe in a 2-2 draw with Wycombe at the then named Liberty Stadium.
Since then there have been numerous good penalty appeals and some blatantly terrible decisions in amongst them as well not to point to the penalty spot and award the Swans the kick.
In the last two home games at all the Swans have had what looked like stonewall appeals turned down – it is difficult to see how the two examples below were missed especially when you see the replays in slow motion – two very clear handball incidents but both of them waved on without any thought of pointing to the spot.
355 days, it will never end pic.twitter.com/YOTDSfPABF
— Days Since Swansea Had a Penalty (@SinceSwansPen) April 10, 2022
This account may never die pic.twitter.com/319LTZCXha
— Days Since Swansea Had a Penalty (@SinceSwansPen) April 15, 2022
It is difficult to know what has led to this run of non penalties for the Swans – last season we almost had the opposite impact with some “soft” penalties awarded towards the end of games drawing much criticism from opposition managers. In particular the comments of Neil Warnock were so strong they drew a hefty fine from the FA when he said “The penalty at Stoke the other night was scandalous. They must be laughing their heads off at the minute but what goes around comes around. I’m sure we’ll see Swansea next year.
“They can’t keep having that much luck with penalties. I don’t know if it’s Cooper’s dad who’s influencing this – he must have all the numbers. It’s the only thing I can think of but, joking apart, they can’t keep having decisions like that.”
In particular the one on Friday against Barnsley drew little of an appeal from the crowd at the time but the replay above is pretty conclusive – the one against Derby was completely different with the whole home crowd appealing at the time for what looked a pretty clear cut decision.
There is little doubt that some of the recent penalty appeals would have been overturned under VAR but without that option currently in the Championship we have to endure the frustration of not seeing these decisions go for us.
So as we reach the mark of 365 days since our last penalty, the question is when will be the next – day 366 would be handy!